Thornton Tomasetti Irvine Principal Leonard Joseph, P.E., S.E. and New York Senior Principal Hi Sun Choi, P.E., LEED AP have been named co-chairs of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s Outrigger Design Working Group.

Thornton Tomasetti, the international engineering firm, has been selected as structural engineer for Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which when completed will be the world’s tallest building at 1,000+ meters.

Dennis Poon has been named one of the 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in Business for 2010.

Poised to become the second tallest building in the world and featuring structural design by Thornton Tomasetti, Incheon 151 Tower-a 151-story mixed-use tower in Incheon, South Korea-has broken ground.

It takes some seriously smart engineering to build so high. Here are the key challenges for the Kingdom Tower as its builders go for the record.

Construction work on Baha Mar’s $2.6 billion Cable Beach redevelopment is “one-third complete”, a senior executive said yesterday, after hitting a “significant milestone” with the installation of the last of 2,550 foundation pilings.

Construction is ready to begin on the $1.2bn Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, says Adrian Smith, the lead architect. The building, to be the world’s tallest, will include a six-storey “sky palace”.

Advances in BIM and software interoperability are helping propel a boom in supertall building construction.

When plans were announced last month to construct the world’s tallest building in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, it was not surprising that much of the focus was on the sheer height of the structure.

Speaking to ConstructionWeek, Bob Sinn, principal at engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti, said: “At extreme heights, the main challenges are along practical and architectural lines, not material or structural.

WTTW talks with Chicago architect Adrian Smith, who, along with his firm, has been picked to design the world’s tallest building — to be built in Saudi Arabia.

The 1km-high Kingdom Tower to be built in Jeddah represents “an evolution and a refinement of an architectural continuum of skyscraper design,” according to Gordon Gill from Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG).

Saudi Arabia unveiled plans Tuesday to build the world’s tallest tower — a mixed-use structure that will rise two-thirds of a mile high — in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.

Baha Mar, billed as the largest single-phase resort development in the history of the Caribbean, celebrated another milestone with the driving of the first of 5,700 pilings on yesterday.

Always famous yet never in the limelight, John Portman, 86, is an architect who made his stamp on the world through hotel atriums and Atlanta’s Peachtree Center.

Sin City is pinning its biggest bet ever — $8.5 billion — on a 67-acre, six-tower complex of striking hotels, gourmet restaurants, swank shops and a single casino that starts opening Tuesday in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip.

Colossal doesn’t begin to describe CityCenter, that $8.5 billion complex opening on Las Vegas Boulevard next week, which looks to shake up the Strip at a time when the last thing it needs is more competition.

More than three months before it opens, the $8.5 billion CityCenter development has received three Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) gold certifications from the U.S. Green Building Council.

A 151-story mixed-use tower under development in Incheon, South Korea, is poised to become one of the world’s tallest buildings when completed, in 2014.

The planned 587-meter 151 Incheon has started the journey toward becoming one of the world’s tallest buildings. If all goes as planned, the 151-story mixed-use skyscraper, which broke ground in late June and is scheduled for a 2014 finish, would rank as the world’s second-tallest. But that is only if it beats the 609-m-tall Chicago Spire, which has a leg up on Incheon but is not yet out of the ground. The Spire’s finish, originally set for 2010, may be up in the air thanks to economic woes, say observers.

A consortium led by Portman Holdings in partnership with Samsung C&T Corp., Hyundai E&C, and SYM-Associates is financing the development of a 151-story, 2,000-foot mixed-use tower in Incheon, South Korea, that, when completed, could stand as the world’s second-tallest building. Designed by Atlanta-based John Portman & Associates with Thornton Tomasetti as structural engineer, Incheon 151 Tower will feature 30 floors of commercial offices, a 300-room hotel, apartments and condos, observation levels at 118 and 119, and sky restaurants at the top of the tower.

The 5.7-million-sf Incheon Tower, expected to be complete by 2014, is part of the $35 billion Songdo International Business District.